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An assessment on the test setups used for energy labeling of ceiling fans

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Abstract

Ceiling fans are used all over the world as a mean of enhancing indoor thermal comfort. A number of grading programs have been initiated for assessing energy performance of ceiling fans, such as ANSI/AMCA 230, Energy Star, IEC 60879, IS 374 and SLS 1600. The configurations of test setups used for performance evaluations in these standards have significant differences to each other. In this study, the influence of such differences on the calculated performance grade of ceiling fans were investigated and the suitability of each dimension of the test set-up is discussed. Particular emphasis was placed on quantifying the effect of the cylindrical drum used in Energy Star and SLS test methods. For this assessment, extensive three-dimensional numerical simulations and experimental measurements were used. Accordingly, the effect of cylinder height, gap between the fan rotation plane and the cylinder, cylinder diameter and the dimensions of the test chamber were investigated. Results show that, the test cylinder, has no significant impact on the calculated performance grade of the tested ceiling fan (variation is less than 2%), and may be eliminated from the test setup. This justifies the recent decision of AMCA on the removal of test cylinder from the fan test set-up. Further, it was also found that the set up dimensions considered herein is large enough so that the calculated start rating is uneffaced by the surrounding solid walls.

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Abbreviations

E :

total energy

\(\overrightarrow F \) :

external body forces

H :

total enthalpy

i :

measured location

k :

conductivity

n :

number of locations

p :

static pressure

\(\overrightarrow r \) :

position vector from the origin of the rotating frame

S h :

source term of the energy equation

T :

temperature in Kelvin

t :

time

\(\overrightarrow U \) :

absolute velocity

\({\overrightarrow u _{\rm{r}}}\) :

velocity of moving frame relative to the inertia reference frame

V 0 :

velocity of the case without a test cylinder

V j :

velocity of the considered case

V j max :

maximum velocity of the considered case

V j,min :

minimum velocity of the considered case

\({\overrightarrow v _{\rm{r}}}\) :

relative velocity (velocity viewed from moving frame)

ρ :

density

\(\overline{\overline \tau } \) :

total stress tensor

\(\overrightarrow \omega \) :

angular velocity relative to stationery (inertia) reference frame

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by University of Moratuwa senate research committee grant no CAP/16/02. The support provided by Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) is also gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

    Dilshan Ramesh Casseer & Chathura Ranasinghe

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  1. Dilshan Ramesh Casseer
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  2. Chathura Ranasinghe
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Correspondence to Chathura Ranasinghe.

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Casseer, D.R., Ranasinghe, C. An assessment on the test setups used for energy labeling of ceiling fans. Build. Simul. 14, 1175–1188 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-020-0725-z

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